Electrodynamics from Ampere to Einstein~tqw~ darksiderg

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Electrodynamics from Ampere to Einstein
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Release NotesThree quarters of a century elapsed between Ampere's definition of
electrodynamics and Einstein's reform of the concepts of space and time. The two
events occurred in utterly different worlds: the French Academy of Sciences of
the 1820s seems very remote from the Bern patent office of the early 1900s, and
the forces between two electric currents quite foreign to the optical
synchronization of clocks. Yet Ampere's electrodynamics and Einstein's
relativity are firmly connected through an historical chain involving German
extensions of Ampere's work, competition with British field conceptions, Dutch
synthesis, and fin de siecle criticism of the aether-matter connection.
Darrigol's book retraces this intriguing evolution, with a physicist's attention
to conceptual and instrumental developments, and with an historian's awareness
of their cultural and material embeddings. This book exploits a wide range of
sources, and incorporates the many important insights of other scholars.
Thorough accounts are given of crucial episodes such as Faraday's redefinition
of charge and current, the genesis of Maxwell's field equations, or Hertz'
experiments on fast electric oscillations.

Table of Contents

Conventions and notations
1 Foundations 1
2 German precision 42
3 British fields 77
4 Maxwell 137
5 British Maxwellians 177
6 Open currents 209
7 Conduction in electrolytes and gases 265
8 The electron theories 314
9 Old principles and a new world-view 351
Appendices 395
Abbreviations used in bibliographies 443
Bibliography of primary literature 445
Bibliography of secondary literature 485
Index 515

Product Details

* ISBN: 0198505949
* ISBN-13: 9780198505945
* Format: Hardcover, 552pp
* Publisher: Oxford University Press
* Pub. Date: August 2000
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